Marchers to rid Detroit of its red dwarf nemesis: The Nain Rouge

Is the Red Dwarf to blame for all of Detroit's woes? Hell no... but we can blame the devilish little thing if we want.

Excerpt:

The Nain was first described by none other than Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, way back in 1701. Legend has it that Cadillac was warned by a fortune teller to appease the dwarf, but didn't listen. Years later, the Nain attacked Cadillac, who hit le petit rouge homme with his walking stick… and things went south for Cadillac. Think imprisonment, indictment and the Bastille.

Since then, the dwarf has been sighted before all kinds of historical disasters: the Battle of Bloody Run in 1763, just before the great fire of 1805, attacking a woman in 1882. The Nain took almost a century off, but was seen before the riots of 1967 and prior to the ice storm of 1976. You get the idea. He's a bad dude.

Detroiters of yore were sly to the Nain's tricks, says Grunow, a law student who owns Midtown's Bureau of Urban Living with wife Claire Nelson, and conducted a semi-regular ritual called Marche de le Nain Rouge to banish the evil critter.

It's a ritual Grunow — and 177 Nain fans (anti-fans?) on Facebook — hopes to revive. With a wink, to be sure, but Grunow says his effort is also a deliberate effort to connect Detroit with its pre-automotive-era history.

Read the entire article here.